


it's all the rage back home

by cmajorchords



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Disabled Character, F/M, Guns, Swearing, Werewolf AU, Werewolf Hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-25 20:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3824920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmajorchords/pseuds/cmajorchords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On her eleventh birthday, Clarke's father had handed her a gun and then proceeded to teach her exactly how and when to use it. And that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of her life. </p><p> </p><p>Bellamy's a werewolf. Clarke's entire family line has been brought up to kill werewolves. Unfortunately, her entire family line now consists of just her, so adjustments have to be made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we've taken a wrong turn somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> i sat down with a pile of textbooks and free response questions and then boom, this came out. i hate myself.

**i. we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere**

On her eleventh birthday, Clarke’s father had handed her a gun and then proceeded to teach her exactly how and when to use it. And that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of her life.  

* * *

 

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Clarke pauses in the middle of swinging her right leg over the window ledge. She sits back, straddling the ledge, and tries to look as innocent as possible – which is to say, not at all. “Um. Hunting?”

“By yourself?” Raven crosses her arms over her chest obstinately, sitting up on the bed. “Your mother hasn’t even cleared you yet.”

“My father has,” Clarke says optimistically.

“Yeah, well, your father is dead,” Raven says flatly.

“And my mother is missing,” Clarke snaps back at her, “so I’m not entirely sure why their opinions matter at this moment.”

Raven sighs. “It’s not safe out there, alone,” she reasons. “At least bring someone. Like me.”

Clarke stares. “Raven, you’re disabled,” she says, referring very pointedly to the useless legs that her friend has tucked beneath the sheets. “How are you supposed to keep me safe? Or, for that matter, hunt?”

“With sheer power of will?” Raven suggests, but sighs again at Clarke’s unimpressed look. “Fine, not me. Get Wells, or something, but just – you’d think, after losing both of your parents, you’d be more inclined to think about your own safety. Aren’t you scared of what might happen to you?”

Clarke swallows, licks her lips. She is, actually, scared of what might happen out there. Finding your father’s bloody, ravaged body in the forest and having your mother vanish on you one day later has that effect. But it’s not going to stop her from going out there, night after night. It can’t.

“No,” Raven says, understanding seemingly dawning, horror filling her expression. “Clarke, you idiot, you can’t possibly –”

“I have to know,” Clarke interrupts tightly. “I have to, Raven, it’s not – I can’t just –”

“It’s not safe out there,” Raven says forcefully, shifting forwards suddenly as if making to tumble out from the sheets. Clarke startles towards her automatically, but Raven catches herself on the bedpost just in time. Her legs slide out from the comforter anyway, limp and skinny. “I get that, you want to know what killed your father, you want to know why your mother disappeared on you – but you can’t go out there alone, especially not like that. Just look at me, you idiot. Look what happened to me.”

Clarke doesn’t have to. She’d been there. Once upon a time, they’d been partners in the hunt, and then she’d gotten distracted and Raven had gotten hurt and it’s her fault, it really is, not that the other girl would ever blame her for it. But now both her parents are gone, and she doesn’t think she can take another day of living like this.

“I’m sorry, Raven,” she says instead. “We can talk about this when I get back.”

“No, Clarke, you fucker, stop being fucking suicidal, get your ass back here –”

But it’s too late. Clarke’s already gone, swinging down off the balcony, sliding down the pipes on the side of her house until she lands, soft and silent, on the grassy lawn. She would’ve taken the front door, but Wells is still camped out on the sofa downstairs like he’d been ever since her father’s funeral and he’s the one with the working legs liable to take her down if he’d needed to. She’d rather not go there, and she’d really like a head start on him.

Still, even as she slips away into the forest, she hears Raven back in her bedroom yelling for Wells. He’s not the lightest sleeper in the world, but Raven has an excellent set of lungs, and so she ups her pace just enough to disappear before he can even think about waking up.

The forest that spreads out over half the town, bounded by a thin line of residential houses, is dark, scary, and feels more like home than the house she’s just left. This is where her father had first shown her how to use a gun. This is where her father had taught her exactly where to aim, what to do if she’s somehow disarmed, how to defend herself using fists and legs and nails, where to run if she’s in trouble. This is where her father had first told her exactly what they’re defending themselves against, how they should always move in a pack when out hunting, how to not do what she’s doing right now.

Werewolves hunt in packs. Humans need to hunt in packs, too. Too bad most of her pack is dead and the other half treats her like breaking glass. Staying home isn’t what she needs to do right now.

She breathes in the cold night air, the scent of pine and undergrowth and that sharp, metallic tang of wolf. This, she thinks, stepping more carefully now, her senses heightening with the adrenaline coursing through her blood. This is what she needs to do right now.

She turns a little sideways, following the stench of wolf that permeates the entire forest. She’s been out here every night since her mother’s disappearance, but she hasn’t found any sign of wolves, which she hopes is a good thing. Still, it gives her absolutely nothing to go off on.

A branch cracks behind her.

Clarke whirls around sharply, her gun already drawn and leveled straight in front of her with unshaking hands. A pair of luminous yellow eyes glint ferociously out of the darkness at her, but there’s no malice in them. No hunger. Her training tells her to shoot; her instincts tell her to wait, and see.

She fires a warning shot when she could’ve had a clear head shot; the wolf jerks back a little upon impact, whining, a cry for help, but it appears to be alone. How strange. The smell of rusty blood joins the scent of wolf, and she breathes in deeply, her forehead creased.

“Shoot, Clarke,” she mutters to herself beneath her breath. This is what she’s looking for. Every second of inaction puts her in even more danger still, but –

The wolf is holding itself perfectly motionless. It stares back at her, thoughtless and uncomprehending. There is blood, probably, gushing out of the bullet in its gut, but it makes no move to run or attack or anything else. She’s never seen a wolf react this way before.  

She stops, stays still.

It is what kills her.

* * *

 

Clarke wakes up with bloodshot eyes and her heart thrumming in her ears.

“You were dead for fifteen seconds,” Wells informs her, his voice disembodied, and Clarke groans a little and turns onto her side. Wells is sat at the kitchen table, his hands clasped neatly, his shirt bloodstained. He looks very blurry around the edges. “I hope you found what you were looking for.”

“I’m not sure what I found,” Clarke says, and coughs a little. Phlegm rises in her throat; she turns on her side to cough it onto the floor, before attempting to sit up. Wells makes no move to stop her, so she must be on this side of alive.

Wells sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Raven told me what you were going out to do,” he says. “But if you think this in any way brings revenge for your father’s death, Clarke –”

“Don’t tell me I’m mistaken,” Clarke replies sharply, and jerks up her shirt to check the neat new lines of stitches in the raw skin. “I’m trying to find who killed him, Wells. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”

Wells sighs some more. It seems like that’s all anyone does around her, these days. It would be slightly exasperating if she cared. “Risking your life like this justifies nothing. I can’t stop you, Clarke, but I hope you realize that all you’re doing is throwing a temper tantrum.”

Clarke feels the rage wash over her, and closes her eyes to force it from her mind. She can’t yell at Wells. He’s one of the few people left in the world that still care about her, even if he’s being a complete asshole right now. “I’m not throwing a temper tantrum,” she says, keeping her voice even and controlled. “I’m hunting, like I was born to do. I’m just hunting for something a little more specific now.”

Wells observes her for a very long time, before standing and nodding. “I’m going to go buy breakfast. You should think about going to school, and definitely about apologizing to Raven.”

“Wells,” Clarke says. “I know you don’t approve, but this is something I have to do. And I have to do it alone.”

“I’m not really in the mood to discuss your suicidal tendencies right now, Clarke. Not when I’ve just spent the last eighteen hours bringing you back to life,” Wells interrupts, and the words are heated but his voice is not. He just sounds exhausted, weary, which is why Clarke watches him walk out of the house and doesn't say a word to stop him.

There is coffee on the table, and Clarke heaves herself off the bloodstained sofa and staggers slowly towards it, clutching at the available furniture on the way to help stay upright. Her kind have always have enhanced healing abilities, which is why she’s not still unconscious after being ripped apart and going through hours of makeshift at-home surgery, but the wounds are still raw and burning and she deeply suspects Wells has given her less than the required amount of painkillers to try and teach her a lesson. Whatever the lesson is, she hasn’t learned it, and the gashes across her stomach and chest hurt like a son of a bitch.

She pours herself coffee, sips lazily at the still-hot liquid, and listens to Raven hook her wheelchair up to the banister of the stairs and then the mechanical whir of the rigged-up device as it drives her down the staircase. “You bled over my favorite shirt,” she announces, wheeling herself into the kitchen to stare down Clarke.

Clarke gets up from the kitchen stool to get another mug for coffee. She pours it and slides it over to Raven. “The one with the unicorns on it?”

“The one with the unicorns on it,” Raven agrees, and eyes her. “I’d ask if you’re sorry, but I don’t really think you are.”

Clarke shrugs. “I’m doing what I think I should be doing. You can’t stop me.”

“No, I can’t,” Raven agrees, unusually resigned. “But there’s a Calculus test fourth period, I need someone to drive me, and also I’m pretty sure you’re three days away from the maximum amount of sick days you can take off school before someone comes checking up on you. Unless you want them to see the impressive collection of firearms you’ve got buried in your closet, I suggest you come with.”

“I’m sick,” Clarke says automatically, and points to the stitches on her stomach.

Raven rolls her eyes and reaches for her cell phone, probably to call someone for a ride. “You’re going to get yourself killed. You can’t keep on going like this, Clarke,” she says, and wheels herself away. Her coffee remains untouched.

She doesn’t sound like Raven. The friend Clarke had known would’ve fought tooth and nail to get her to come to school, to get her to stay home at night, to get her to put down her gun and stop chasing the demons that haunt her dreams. For the first time, Clarke wonders if this mission is hurting more than just herself.

“Raven,” she calls, and the other girl turns back, hand already on the doorknob. “Give me five minutes to get dressed, I’m coming.”

* * *

 

At school, her teachers stare at her like she’d descended into the building on a space station crash-landing on Earth. She struggles to remember math formulas and what book they’re working on this month for English. “I haven’t been away _that_ long,” she says aloud in the middle of third period when all the stares are getting to be a little too much to take, cutting off her Ancient History teacher mid-lecture.

The teacher puts down his chalk and squints at her dubiously over the top of his heavy textbook. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you being in this class – what was your name again?”

She resists the urge to face-plant in her desk. Someone snorts in the back of the classroom, obviously very amused, and she has to resist the urge to middle-finger that guy, as well.

Wells actually smiles when he sees her enter the cafeteria during their shared fifth-period lunch, waving her over immediately. “Good to see you back.”

Clarke makes a non-committal noise, resolutely pretends that no one is staring at her, and stabs her fork into her container of salad. 

* * *

They have dinner together at Clarke’s house that night, Raven and Wells and herself. Wells cooks, as usual, because Clarke’s always been too busy killing the things that go bump in the night to spent much time in the kitchen, and Raven has the superhuman ability to burn water. The conversation between the three of them isn’t flowing, exactly, but the atmosphere is far more relaxed than it has been in the days past.

“My father wants me to go home tonight,” Wells says, when most of the food has disappeared from their plates, or at least in Clarke’s case, been shifted around substantially.

Raven tenses.

Clarke clears her throat. “I wasn’t planning on going out tonight. Besides, you’ve been here an awful lot. Your father probably misses you.”

“I need to know that you’re going to be okay, Clarke,” Wells says gently.

Clarke blows out her breath exasperatedly. “Like I said, I wasn’t planning on going out tonight. I get the message, you’re all worried about me, I’m going to get myself killed – I’m not giving up, but I’m also not going out tonight.”

“Yeah, because the next time you do it alone and come back with Wells holding your intestines inside you while you bleed all over him and me and the floor, I’m going to bring you back to life and then kill you again,” Raven says casually, and scoops the last bits of mashed potatoes into her mouth.

“Well, in that case,” Clarke says, rolling her eyes.

“Just because I can’t fucking walk doesn’t mean I can’t stab you in the throat,” Raven returns pleasantly.

Wells almost smiles. “I’ll leave you two ladies to it. Do the dishes. Lock the doors and windows. Don’t do anything stupid,” he warns, sets down his plate in the sink, grabs his coat, and leaves.

“Does he think that just because he told us to do the dishes that we’re actually going to do it?” Raven wonders, twirling her fork around absentmindedly in the air.

“He can be slightly delusional sometimes,” Clarke agrees, and it’s only when Raven barks out a laugh that she realizes how much she’s missed her best friend.

The two of them have been friends since very young, if only because their parents knew each other from running in the same werewolf-hunting circles – and when Raven’s parents had gotten killed on a raid to a werewolf nest a couple of years back, the same raid that had disabled Raven, Clarke’s parents had adopted her right into their family. And now they’re gone, as well. It’s just the two of them left, carrying on the legacy they never asked for.

“We should put on a movie,” Raven suggests, after a pause. “Eat all the ice cream, and drink your dad’s whiskey. It’ll be fun.”

“I wouldn’t classify a raging hangover in the morning as _fun_ , exactly,” Clarke says dryly, but gets up to retrieve the bottle anyway.

* * *

 

The clock ticks over to one in the morning, and Clarke reaches over Raven’s sleeping body for the remote, shutting off the television. There is popcorn on the floor, in the crevices of the couch, littering the blankets they’d gotten out from the hall closet. She’d painted Raven’s toenails neon pink, and she’d done Clarke’s in glitter gold.

And now there’s a gun tucked into her waistband and a silver-plated dagger holstered up her sleeve, and she lets herself out of the house and into the forest. She knows she should feel guilty for lying to Wells, and to Raven, but they need to understand. They have to understand. They’re her pack, but this is something that needs to be done alone.

She has to find her mother, and avenge her father, and she has a sinking feeling she’ll die trying but it’s not going to stop her either way.

The woods are somehow quieter tonight. Every leaf rustling, every step she takes, seems to be unnaturally amplified, and there is something electrifying in the air, stinging her skin, telling her to back off and run away with every breath she takes. She keeps going, because she can sense it – there’s something out there. It’s waiting for her, and it’s only polite to forge onwards.

There’s something out there, tonight, and she knows exactly why it’s waiting for her.

She smells the blood and the wolf before she realizes that she’s exactly where she’d been two nights ago. There is a dried bloodstain on the grass by her feet, shining dully in the moonlight filtering in through the foliage. When she looks up, she catches her breath, her gun useless at her side, as she locks eyes with the strange animal.

She can see the blood on its claws, digging deep into the earth, and nausea threatens to overtake her when she realizes it’s probably hers.

This time, she doesn’t deliberate; she brings up her gun, takes aim, and fires.

The bullet catches the werewolf dead center in the middle of its forehead; it keens, loud and sharp in the heavy air, and she knows she has to hurry before the rest of its pack catches up. When he drops down onto the ground, unconscious, she mentally gives herself five minutes, gathering his limbs up and trussing him up fit for slaughter, before slinging the entire thing over her back before attempting to stand up.

She staggers almost immediately, and she curses. Still, she tries again, acclimatizing to the weight, double her own body weight, on her back, and breaks out into as fast of a run as she can.

The bullet hadn’t been silver. The werewolf isn’t dead. It would be fine, as soon as it awakens, and then it would claw and fight and kill its way back to freedom. Now, though, it’s going to be unconscious for maybe an hour, hopefully two, and that should be enough time to chain him up in the basement.

She isn’t on a suicide mission, contrary to Wells’ and Raven’s accusations. All she needs is information. And if this werewolf can give her what she needs, well, then – she would have no problem setting him free. Something tells her it’s not going to be that easy, though.

Back in the house, she works to get the werewolf downstairs without her legs giving out beneath them both, or waking up Raven. It’s easier said than done, and she’s perspiring heavy by the time she sets the dead weight down on the cool stone of the basement and reaches for the chains buried deep into the walls. Her parents had built the werewolf prison beneath their house, just in case, and she could not be more grateful. The doors and windows are lined with silver, making them inaccessible to anyone but humans, and the chains are heavier and sturdier than most, resistant to even the change on full moons, the most volatile part of a werewolf’s cycle, when they’re caught in between wolf and human and stronger than both.

It’s when she’s just finishing up securing the chains on the legs and arms that the werewolf stirs, and she sees the parts of humanity filter back into the werewolf. The black fur disappears, turning into a matted head of curly dark hair. The form shifts, contorts, twists back into a tall, muscled shape curled on the floor naked. The pointed ears disappear, as does the muzzle, and she feels recognition wash over her as she watches his face reappear, his eyes flickering back to life.

“Bellamy Blake,” she blurts, surprised, and he tenses on the floor before attempting to lunge at her, spitting and cursing.

She steps back smartly just in time and the chains catch him and yank him backwards. He collapses back down onto the floor, making no move to cover himself, still feral and inhumane in these first few moments right after the change.

He snarls at her, his face twisting meanly. “I thought I killed you, princess,” he sneers.

Clarke presses her lips together, her eyes narrowing. “Apparently you’re not as good at the killing thing as you like to think.”

He laughs, nasty and malicious. “Right back at you, princess.”

“I wasn’t out there to kill you to get back for you attacking me,” Clarke says. “I was out there to find one of you.”

“And torture them? This some sick hobby of yours, then?”

“No, you asswipe.” Clarke draws herself up to her full height, which isn’t much, to her chagrin, but at least putting her shoulders back give her some semblance of authority. With him sprawled on the floor, she towers over him anyway. “I wanted to ask about my parents.”

Bellamy’s eyes turn cool, assessing. It takes a long moment before he answers, saying, “Abby and Jake Griffin. We all knew of them.”

“Did you kill them, then?” Clarke asks, wondering what she’d do if he replied in the affirmative. Her plan had been to find out what happened to her parents; she isn’t sure how to go on, now.

“We knew of them,” he repeats, his eyes boring into hers like he’s trying to read her mind, and succeeding. “Which is why we’d never kill them.”

Something seems to break away in her stomach and sink like a stone. Clarke passes a hand over her face, feeling the past few sleepless nights catching up to her in a single swift second. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

An ugly grin takes over his face. He holds up his chained hands, palms up, a signal of surrender. “I guess you’re just going to have to trust me, princess.” 

* * *

 

“Raven, I need you to not panic.”

Raven squints at her, and rubs sleep gunk out of her eyes as she struggles upright on the couch she’d fallen asleep on last night. Her hair is a rat’s nest on top of her head, with popcorn scattered intermittently throughout like a fashion statement gone wrong.

“If you have to tell me not to panic, I can guarantee you right now that I most definitely will,” Raven says, flicking her eyes up to the ceiling as if praying for divine intervention. “At least get me coffee first?”

Clarke presses her own mug of life-giving liquid into Raven’s hands, watching very carefully as she takes a large sip. Raven squints at her some more. “Why are you dressed in gear? You said that you weren’t – oh, fuck you, bitch. That’s the last time I’m ever trusting you, you son of a –”

“There’s a werewolf in the basement,” Clarke interrupts, before Raven can get too far into her rant, because, well, there’s a werewolf in the basement.

Raven stares at her silently for a very long time.

“Also, he’s Bellamy Blake. As in, the senior that takes sophomore classes with us because he didn’t go to school for two years and apparently dealt drugs and joined the mafia instead, and in retrospect he was probably just off being a wolf?”

Raven keeps staring.

“I’m going to need you to say something right about now, Raven, even if it’s just you cursing me out, because this is starting to freak me out –”

Raven drops the coffee mug onto the floor. It shatters, and Clarke winces a bit as black liquid splatters across the far and stains the carpet. “Clarke Griffin,” she says, very calmly, “you have five seconds to take me down to see the werewolf in the basement, and also to explain very explicitly, in clear terms, exactly how he got there.”

Clarke cringes. Raven holds her arms up imperiously in an obvious demand, and Clarke obliging hooks her own arms beneath hers, pulling her up and off the couch and tucking her into the waiting wheelchair. Then she turns it around, gripping the handles of the wheelchair and starting to push it towards the stairs.

“I went out last night,” she begins.

“Obviously,” Raven snorts deliriously, and then mutters something beneath her breath that sounds suspiciously like _fuckhead_ and _betrayal_.

“He was the werewolf that attacked me the other night. He found me again, but this time I shot him in the head, but with a normal bullet, because I wanted to bring him back here.”

“You wanted to ask him about your parents?”

She nods, even though Raven can’t see her, too busy hooking up her wheelchair to the machinery along the side of the stairs that will drive the wheelchair down to the basement. “I don’t know how many packs of wolves there are out in that forest, but I thought I had to start somewhere, see if he knew anything about my parents. So I brought him back here, chained him up, and when he woke up and changed back I realized he was Blake, but like – I couldn’t just let him go.”

“I seriously do not have time for your shit anymore, Clarke,” Raven says, but at least now she sounds more interested than angry. Clarke follows Raven down the stairs, and then starts fiddling with the silver lock on the basement door. “Did you ask him, then?”

“He spouted some crap about everyone knowing my parents, and that’s why they wouldn’t kill them. In a very sarcastic, roundabout, stubborn way, I suppose he was pleading innocent.”

Raven looks at her, as Clarke undoes the last deadbolt and fingers the handle. “Do you think he’s lying, then?”

Clarke pauses, frowns. “Actually, I don’t think he was at all,” she says, and pushes the door open.

Bellamy is still sprawled across the floor, but is soft snores tell them both that he’s asleep, slumped half on the floor and half against the wall. He’s still chained up. He’s refused to put on the clothes that Clarke had rummaged out of her father’s closet last night, not even the underwear.

Raven raises her eyebrows. “Huh,” she says, and then raises her voice. “Werewolf!”

Bellamy snorts himself awake, but regains himself in a second, glaring at Raven and Clarke and shifting subtly away from them. “What do you want?” he demands.

“I had to tell Raven there was a werewolf in the basement,” Clarke explains. “She wanted to come down and verify it for herself.”

“There is a werewolf in the basement,” Raven reports. “I’m happy to declare that your sanity lives another day, Griffin.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Clarke returns, deadpan.

Bellamy glances between the two of them, as though wondering if their bizarre interaction is actually code. “So am I free to go, now? Or am I your lab specimen?”

“She can’t just let you go,” Raven points out reasonably. “You’re going to gather your pack and come back and kill us all and burn this house to the ground. I don’t think so.”

Bellamy cocks his head at her. “I hadn’t thought of that. But now that you mention it –”

“I can’t let you go,” Clarke says abruptly, and stares at him.

He meets her gaze head-on, unflinching, domineering, as though he’s the captor and she’s the one chained to the wall, naked and grimy. “Then I propose a truce, princess,” he says bluntly. “I help you avenge your parents. And then you let me go, I promise not to kill you and everyone you love or let anyone else do so, and we part to live out separate happily ever afters.”

“How are you going to help me avenge my parents?” Clarke asks, her heart in her throat. Raven stays silent.

He grins, sharp and cold, revealing his teeth. “I’m a wolf, princess. I know the packs in your forest better than anyone else, I know who their alphas are, I know the territories that they rule, I know the pacts and agreements they’ve settled with each other. I know their strengths and weaknesses. I can help you find out who killed your father, and who disappeared your mother. You need me.”

* * *

 Upstairs, Raven turns to Clarke. “You need him,” she says quietly.

Clarke nods. “I know.”

“Blake’s an alpha,” Raven says. “You can see it in his eyes. You can’t trust him.”

“I won’t.”

“Clarke,” Raven says, and the note of urgency in her voice makes Clarke turn to face her. “You know I’d die for you, right?”

“Raven –”

“I’m here if you need me. But now, I need to go to school if you’re not coming with today, and when I get back I expect to know what you’ve decided to do with the lovely werewolf in your basement.” She pauses. “I’ll bring back those donuts you like from that corner café.”

Clarke smiles, but exhaustion blurs away the edges of her mouth. “You’re the best, Rae.”

“And don’t you ever forget it,” she nods haughtily, and wheels off to get changed.

* * *

After Raven leaves for school, Clarke glances at the clock and makes a split-second decision. She has ten minutes left, if she expects to get to school in time for first period. She grabs her backpack, make sure she has yesterday’s homework in it (it’s still not done, who has time for that shit when there’s a werewolf in the basement, it’s the thought that counts) and heads back downstairs.

“Blake, give me your arm,” she says, and when the guy only blinks at her uncomprehendingly, she grabs his arm and sticks a needle into it, pushing it down in one smooth motion.

“Hey! What the hell?” Bellamy rips his arm away from her and cradles it to his naked chest, glaring at her.

“I have just released millions of sugar capsules containing silver into your bloodstream,” she informs him matter-of-factly. “I press this button right here –” she holds up the corresponding remote – “and the sugar deteriorates, releasing the silver. I’ve never seen it in action before, but I imagine you’d die in a world of pain. If nothing happens, and I have no cause to press the button, then the capsules will eventually pass out of your system, harmless.”

He sneers at her. “What is this, princess? A safety measure?”

“Exactly. I haven’t been real big on trust, lately.” She stands, and unlocks his chains. “Get up. We’re going to school.”

He stays sitting on the cold floor. “What?” he asks incredulously.

“You’ve already missed two years of formal education, do you really want to repeat another year? I’m doing you a favor here, Blake,” she says impatiently. He pauses another moment, but scrambles to his feet and towards the neat pile of clothes in the corner.

“Thanks,” he says grudgingly.

“Don’t try to run,” she says in lieu of an actual reply, and herds him out to her car.

* * *

 The moment Bellamy Blake gets out of her car with her in the middle of the crowded student parking lot, he’s the center of attention. Apparently, along with English reading and History papers, Clarke has also missed how Bellamy has suddenly become one of the most popular guys in school, evidenced by the sudden human traffic towards him upon arrival.

“Where were you –”

“What happened –”

“Clarke Griffin?” a female voice screeches, too loud, and Clarke turns sharply to see an olive-skinned, dark-haired girl, half-held in Blake’s arms and glaring at her.

Girlfriend, maybe? She ignores this and slings her backpack over her shoulder, stalking towards the school entrance and pointedly ignoring everyone.

“Octavia –” Bellamy begins wearily, and the name sparks recognition in Clarke’s brain. Octavia Blake. Bellamy’s little sister, not girlfriend. They’re in the same grade; she’d first heard the name back in freshman year, when she’d punched out a senior, Atom, for grabbing her butt. She remembers admiring her for that in a mild, vaguely approving kind of way, but she’s never had any real contact with the girl. They haven’t got any classes together.

At lunchtime, Wells stalks towards her with veritable storm clouds over his head, and she has the inane urge to just run for it. She stays put, anyway, letting Wells slam down his lunch tray at her table with unnecessary force. Chocolate milk spills out of his carton. “A werewolf?” he hisses, voice pitched just low enough to conceal his words from eavesdroppers but loud enough to convey the exact degree of his rage. “You have a _werewolf_ in your _basement_ , and I have to hear it from _Raven_?”

“I take offence,” Raven says mildly, wheeling up to their table with her own tray balanced on her lap. “I’ll have you know I’m a very reliable source, Jaha.”

“That’s not –” Wells starts, then seemingly deflates, sinking down into his seat. “Why, Clarke?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time?” Clarke tries.

Wells gives her a wholly unimpressed look.

“He’s a werewolf,” she says. “He has information I need to know, if I’m going to be solving my father’s dead anytime soon, or finding my mother. I’ve taken precautions, Wells, you don’t have to worry.”

“I think that’s already sort of redundant seeing as how you’ve already ensured I’ll be getting my first heart attack before I’m thirty,” Wells informs the table at large.

Raven waves her fork in his face. “Now, now, Wells, that’s just pure speculation.”

Wells rounds on her. “How can you be so cavalier about this?”

Raven blinks back at him. “Clarke is right,” she says finally. “Blake has what she needs. And are you really saying that if it were your father that was dead, your mother that was missing, that you wouldn’t be doing everything in your power to find out what happened? Give her a little credit, Wells, the girl knows what she’s doing.”

This time it’s Clarke’s turn to stare at Raven, startled. “I thought you were on his side. What changed your mind?”

“You’re not going to be giving up on this anytime soon, Clarke. We’re partners. If you’re out to kill yourself doing this, then you can be damn sure I’ll be right there dying with you.” Raven stops. “You know what, that sounded a lot better in my head.”

“It would be a shame if both of you died,” Wells announces.

“We’ll try not to,” Raven agrees dryly.

* * *

 “So how are we going to do this?” Clarke asks, as they sit around the living room with stacks of pizza and Wells glaring distrustfully at everyone.

Bellamy taps his fingers along the edge of the coffee table. He’s sitting on the carpet leaning against the couch, steadfastly ignoring Wells’ presence, and it would be less obvious that he was uncomfortable if he wasn’t fidgeting constantly. “I asked around my pack at school, to see what they knew,” he says.

“And?” Raven prompts.

He looks up at Clarke. “And I asked Octavia to bring along some things. Lists of kills – we keep track of them, even if they’re from outside of our own packs. Also family lines. I thought that might be useful, to see who might have a vendetta against your family. Contrary to popular belief, wolves don’t really kill indiscriminately. Killing’s actually sort of a last resort for us.”

“Is that why you ripped Clarke half to death the other day?” Wells snipes.

“She was in my territory, and holding a weapon,” Bellamy replies shortly, and does not look at Clarke. “I was protecting my land, and my pack. You’ll also see that she’s very far from dead.”

Wells opens his mouth to reply, probably with another cutting remark, but Clarke cuts him off quickly before things can disintegrate into a knock-down fistfight. “That was good thinking, Blake.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Bellamy answers, uncharacteristically dramatically as though to prove a point, and glares at Wells.

“Octavia’s coming?” Raven asks.

“Yeah,” Bellamy says, and rolls his eyes when Wells’ shoulders immediately stiffen. “Relax, she hasn’t turned yet. We don’t think she ever will. Sometimes that happens. She might bring along a few of the pack, though.”

“A few?” Wells asks sharply.

Bellamy smiles, all teeth. “A few,” he nods, and someone knocks on the door.

Wells moves swiftly towards it before anyone else has the chance, pulling it open to reveal Octavia, framed by a lanky guy wearing goggles on top of his head and another, shorter one.

Octavia charges in without invitation, and slams a folder of something down on top of the table, glaring at everyone, including her brother.

Bellamy sighs. “Play nice, O.”

“They kidnapped you,” she seethes, arms crossed. “They shot you, they threatened you. They locked you up in the _basement_ , and you want me to play nice?”

“Yes, actually,” Bellamy says mildly, and tosses the folder over to Clarke. “There, princess. Take a look.”

Clarke takes it, but spares a wary glance at the other two boys first. “And who are –”

“Jasper,” the taller one blurts, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “And this is Monty. We’re – we’re Octavia’s bodyguards.”

Octavia mutters something unsavory about the idea of her needing bodyguards, but Clarke thinks that’s actually very reasonable, considering she isn’t a wolf herself and has no means of protecting herself from the rivals of her brother looking to advance their territories. Beating up a teenage guy is one thing, beating up a werewolf is quite another.

“What do the goddamn papers say, Griffin?” Raven demands impatiently.

“Before you read that,” Octavia says, her arms still crossed, her eyes still glaring, but there’s something like pity in her expression now as she regards Clarke. “I think you should know something. It’s been going around in the rumor mills back home. Your mother’s a werewolf, Griffin.”

 

* * *

 

“Clarke, I know you’re in there. You’re worrying us.”

Clarke continues staring up at the ceiling, eagle-spread on top of her bed. “Go away, Wells,” she says automatically, emotionlessly.

“It’s been a day. You have to eat something.”

She doesn’t reply, to that. She’s been telling him the same thing for hours now, and if he doesn’t want to listen, fine. She isn’t going to repeat herself anymore.

“Clarke –”

There’s a muffled scuffle outside her door, and then retreating footsteps.

“Princess,” says a new voice, making her startle. This one is deeper, more gruff, more exasperated and less understanding. “In case you haven’t noticed, our truce is still ongoing. Your mother becoming a werewolf didn’t actually change anything, so I’m going to need you to get off your ass and get back to work.”

She sighs. “Go away, Blake.”

“No,” he says obstinately, and she imagines him planting his feet at her door. “I want to go home. To do that, I need to solve your dad’s murder. Are you going to help me or not, princess?”

She doesn't reply. He changes track.

“Everyone out here has been worrying their little brains off for you. You’re being a little shit right now, do you know that?”

His words incite an overwhelming rage within her, and she’s surprised, mainly because it’s the first real emotion she’s felt in a while and he’s the one who’d caused it. She hadn’t been expecting that, but it makes her sit up and glare at the door as if he can see her, all the same. “My mother is a werewolf,” she spits. “Can’t you give me some time to get process that?”

“You’ve had time,” he answers mercilessly. “You’ve had more than enough time. It’s not the end of the world, and I can honestly say that.”

“You don’t understand. My mother fought her entire life against your kind. She and my father –”

“Best werewolf hunters in existence, blah blah blah,” he interrupts meanly. “I get it. But she’s a werewolf now, you can’t change that by moping around being _a little shit_ , she’s probably dealing with it better than you are, and your father’s killer is still out there somewhere. You gonna stand for that, princess?”

No, she’s very tempted to yell right back at him. No, she won’t stand for that. But doing so would be admitting she’s being a little shit, and she’s not quite there yet. She closes her eyes, instead. “My mother despised werewolves,” she says evenly. “Maybe without reason, maybe it was prejudice talking, but that doesn’t matter, because she did. If I find her, what do you think she’s going to ask me to do?”

Bellamy falls silent for a moment, which is how she knows that he only now understands exactly why she’s locked herself up in her room.

“Princess,” he says again, just a tad more gently than before. “Locking yourself up still does her no good. If on the off chance she wants you to kill her, hand her the gun and walk away. You don’t have to be responsible for her death the way you’re holding yourself responsible for your father’s.”

His words are making an awful lot of sense. Clarke hates it. “I still can’t do that.”

“Then decide when you get there,” he says firmly. “Right now, you need to come out, and we need to solve your dad’s murder. Whenever you’re ready, princess.”

It takes her a long moment, but eventually she scrambles off the bed and yanks her door open. Bellamy is standing there waiting for her, leaning against the wall beside her door with the most incorrigible expression on his face.

“Fancy seeing you here, princess,” he says.

“Shut up, Blake.”

“What, no thank you?”

She rolls her eyes without real heat, he nudges her hip with his, and the two of them walk downstairs together.

“We’ve narrowed it down to two packs,” Octavia says without glancing up at them when they enter the room. They’re sprawled all over the living room, Raven and Wells and Monty and Jasper and Octavia, like some sort of base of operations. Papers are scattered; Raven is lazily sharpening a knife in plain sight.

“Which ones?” Bellamy asks, going to take a seat beside his sister.

Wells makes a mild noise when Clarke settles in on the couch. Raven gives her a vague pat on the shoulder with the hand not holding the knife, but otherwise no one makes any comment as to her sudden reappearance. Clarke’s grateful for it.

“Cage’s and Sydney’s,” Octavia reads, and hands off the appropriate sheets to her brother. “Cage’s got a lot of newly turned who maybe don’t know the rules of the game yet. And Sydney – well, she’s Sydney.”

Clarke perks up. “What? Who’s Sydney?”

“Diana Sydney,” Bellamy explains. “She’s, um. She doesn’t like playing nice.”

Octavia snorts. “Understatement of the century,” she mutters. She takes a fistful of Doritos from the veritable bucket Wells had set out, and crunches into it noisily.

“And you think she’s the one who killed my father because?”

“This,” Jasper suddenly says, and then when everyone looks towards him, puts on a slightly sheepish expression as though he hadn’t meant to say anything at all. Despite that, he gestures to the piece of paper in front of him, that he’d been absently scanning through moments before. “That, um. It says – well, it’s a list of the Sydney pack’s kills in the past month. And a Jake Griffin is on it. I might be wrong, but –”

“You’re not wrong,” Octavia says quietly, taking the page from Jasper’s hands and holding it up for inspection, before handing it over to Bellamy, who’s starting to make impatient noises at her. “That’s – Clarke, I’m sorry.”

Clarke licks her lips, and doesn’t say anything. She’d known someone had killed her father. She just hadn’t prepared herself to find out so easily, so fast. Now it feels a little like the entire world has left her grasping in space, in a lurch, like she’d expected another step on the staircase but had landed jarringly, abruptly, with her mind still stuck in another time and place.

“Your father killed one of her pack before,” Bellamy says, his voice strained. “I remember that. It was – years ago, when my father died, and I first turned. I’m betting you didn’t know that. But he did, and everyone knows that accidents happen, but Sydney’s very good at holding grudges.”

“She’d probably have your mother as well, Clarke,” Monty adds in mildly, his voice a little shy but heard all the same. “Werewolves have a thing about blood debt. Equal repayment, an eye for an eye, and all that.”

“I think we probably have our killer and kidnapper, then,” Wells says, his voice pitched optimistic, but no one smiles.

“Okay,” Clarke says, her brain whirring. “Okay, Diana Sydney. What do we do now?”

Bellamy glances at her. “Looking to you, princess.”

“You want to kill her?” Raven asks flippantly, stashing her knife in her arm holster. “Killing is easy. Killing, I can do.”

“No,” Bellamy says firmly. “All that would be doing is turning their entire pack against you, and if they come to us for help, we’ll have to give it, and just – just, no.”

“Then what do you suggest, oh great alpha leader?” Raven asks sardonically.

Bellamy turns back to Clarke. “When you said revenge for your father,” he says slowly, “exactly what kind of revenge did you have in mind, exactly?”

Clarke shrugs. “Well, mostly I just wanted to slice someone’s head off,” she says. “What do _you_ have in mind?”

Bellamy eyes his sister, and then Jasper and Monty; all of them immediately sit up straighter, comprehension dawning in their eyes. Clarke does not like the way this is going, not at all.

“This began as a compromise, a truce,” Bellamy begins slowly as the smile that spreads invitingly across his face. “How about we turn it into alliance?”

* * *

 

The story goes like this:

Diana Sydney is a bitch.

That’s it, really. There’s some stuff in there about how she’s new to the area and overstepping her boundaries ridiculously and every other pack has got it out for her, but they won’t make a move because above all else, they’re werewolves, blood-bonded brothers and sisters and family, bonds forged of steel.

“It’s gone too far, though,” Octavia tells them. By now it’s long since gone dark outside and Clarke has the feeling that everyone has been camped out here since morning, before she’d emerged from her room, but no one is making a move to leave so whatever. “Werewolf etiquette is – not set in stone exactly, but I’m pretty sure there’s a rule somewhere in there that goes like don’t kill or kidnap any humans.”

“Because sooner or later someone’s going to raise a big fuss and then werewolves will be public knowledge and there’ll be a worldwide witch hunt in which all werewolves and lines of such will be extinguished, and the earth’s biodiversity will be greatly damaged and may never recover,” Jasper offers, as though reciting from a textbook. Monty pats him reassuringly on the shoulder.

“Yeah, that,” Bellamy nods easily. “So, I’m going to go talk to the other packs, but whether or not they agree, we’re moving in on them. We don’t need their permission, or their help, but it would be polite to let them know we’re going to war fifteen yards from their own territories before we actually do.”

“And what would you get out of this alliance?” Wells asks skeptically.

“Their territory, and their wolves,” Clarke says, before Bellamy can. “That’s what you’ll get.”

Bellamy nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that’s what we get.”

“And you’ll hunt with us,” Raven continues. “You’ll fight your own self-proclaimed brothers and sisters just for one little girl’s quest for revenge?”

“What Sydney did was wrong,” Bellamy says. “I’m not fighting for Clarke. I’m fighting to protect the werewolf race, because that’s what we do for each other. If we are to survive, we need to remain a secret, and Sydney is threatening that. I would’ve moved in on her sooner rather than later, even without this.”

“And this is just an added bonus? The loyalty of a pack of hunters?”

“Right,” Bellamy agrees, very calmly, even as Raven’s right eyebrow creeps closer and closer to her hairline. “A favor owed. I think that’s actually very fair, wouldn’t you say so?”

“And how do we know you’ll keep your word?” Raven persists, even as Clarke shoots her warning looks and Wells gives her placating ones. “How do we know you’re not just going to turn on us the moment the battle begins?”

Jasper and Monty freeze. Octavia’s hands drop into her lap, oddly motionless, and she doesn’t look at anybody. Bellamy smiles at them all, wide and vicious. “Sydney wasn’t an alpha three months ago. Unfortunately, three months ago, she decided to kill my mother to claim the title that wasn’t hers.”

Raven drops her gaze; Clarke, however, looks up towards Bellamy. He’s as fierce as ever, giving no hint of the vulnerability in his words, but she can see the white of his knuckles clenched into fists. “Okay,” she hears herself saying, as though from very far away. Bellamy’s head jerks around to meet her eyes.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Clarke repeats, and holds out a hand to shake. “Okay, Bellamy Blake, we have an alliance.”


	2. try not to make a scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their house is destroyed, but it can be rebuilt; her mother is a werewolf, but she’s strong and surviving, everyone is still breathing, and it's the best of a happy ending they could've expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has not been reread or edited yet, so i apologize in advance for all the mistakes that are probably in here, but i just wanted to get it up here.

**ii. try not to make a scene**

Bellamy sleeps over at her house that night.

Jasper does a suggestive-eyebrow dance at Clarke when Bellamy announces his intentions, and Monty sniggers a bit, but other than a dismissive glance at them both Bellamy doesn’t react.

“What,” Wells says flatly.

Bellamy shrugs. “It’s easier,” he explains, but doesn’t elaborate. Wells continues glaring at him.

“You’ll have to sleep in my room,” Clarke says, “seeing as Wells is already occupying the couch.” She doesn’t object; it would be easier to keep an eye on Bellamy like this, especially as she doesn’t trust him quite enough yet to let him loose on his own. At least this way, she can be sure he isn’t going around planning a double-cross or anything.

“You have to brief the other alphas,” Octavia says mildly, but not like she wants her brother to come home with her, more like she’s just helping to work out the logistics of this new arrangement.

Bellamy nods. “Jasper, Monty, you can accompany Octavia to all the houses. Inform them of the decision, and the impending war, and make it clear that they are not obligated to help but any aid would be welcome anyway. You’ll have to be my envoy.”

“You don’t have to do that yourself?” Raven asks, interested. She’s always cared more about pack dynamics than Clarke had ever given the time of day. “Won’t the alphas take offence?”

“They know what Octavia means to me,” Bellamy shrugs. “They’ll see it as an honor. It’ll be fine.”

“And this is wise?” Wells interrupts hotly. “Keeping a werewolf in the house where you sleep?”

Bellamy jerks upright, and yellow flickers in his eyes, as though he’s seconds away from the change. Octavia puts a hand on her brother’s shoulder as though to still him, but her eyes are daggers anyway.

“Wells,” Clarke says evenly. “If there’s going to be an alliance, at least pretend to some semblance of trust. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

Wells looks at her for a long moment, then scrambles to his feet. “Call me when you’re ready to attack,” he says gruffly, and marches out the front door.

“Whoops,” Raven says, and glances at Clarke, who sighs and rubs at her temples.

“Stop provoking each other, you’re not three-year-olds on the playground,” she says tiredly. “I’m going to bed. Bellamy, you can sleep wherever.”

“Thanks, princess,” Bellamy replies almost automatically, but he’s eyeing her speculatively.

Clarke stands, and looks questioningly at Raven. “Where do you –”

“I’m going to order pizza,” Raven tells her. “I don’t feel like sleep yet.”

“It’s almost midnight, are any pizza places going to be open so late?” Octavia asks doubtfully, standing and beginning to gather up the papers around the carpet, preparing to leave.

Raven smirks. “I know a guy,” she says. “You want pizza, little Blake?”

Octavia pauses, and stares at Raven. “Pepperoni,” she says eventually.

“And what about Tweedledee and Tweedledum over there?”

“Hawaiian,” Jasper and Monty say simultaneously, and Raven blinks a little at the freaky synchronization but nods.

“Coming right up,” she mutters, picks up her cell phone, and wheels herself into the living room to make the call.

“Pizza at midnight?” Bellamy asks his little sister. “Really, O?”

“Life is short, you gotta take opportunities where you can get them, big brother,” Octavia grins, and reaches up to ruffle Bellamy’s hair. He scowls, ducking away. “I’ll leave for the houses right after this, I promise. Are you really going to let them keep you a night longer?”

“Easier,” Bellamy repeats vaguely, and Clarke’s half-tempted to ask _easier for what_ but manages to keep her mouth shut.

“Bellamy,” she says instead. “You want sheets and pillows?”

“Don’t go out of your way for me, princess.”

“I’m not going to let your sister accuse me of kidnapping you again. Come on, we can have a giant slumber party or something.”

Amused, Bellamy nods and trails after her upstairs. She yanks open the hall closet, examines it contents, and then emerges with armfuls of cotton sheets and an extra pillow. She dumps them into Bellamy’s arms, and then pushes open her bedroom door for him to make a bed on the floor. “Raven sleeps in here, too,” she informs him as he arranges the sheets and pillows. “She’s, um. My parents adopted her. Before, you know.”

Bellamy’s forehead creases a little. “What happened to –”

“There was a raid,” Clarke says, and shuts her eyes hard. “I lost focus, Raven was too busy protecting me, and then one of the wolves lunged at her and her parents had to take the brunt of the attack. They died protecting her. And then she was paralyzed from the waist down, because of me. It was – it was my fault.”

His hand brushes over the side of her face, almost tenderly, and her eyes spring back open. His face is too close, and there’s something unreadable but genuine in his expression as he tucks a lock of her hair back behind her ear. “Princess,” he says gently, and somehow that’s beginning to sound like a term of endearment more than a jibe. “From what I can see, Raven doesn’t blame you for it.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Clarke shrugs, and looks away from him. “I blame myself for it enough for the both of us.”

“The way I see it, the world’s always a little short on forgiveness,” Bellamy says quietly. “If you don’t take it where you can get it, one day there’ll be none left for you.”

* * *

 

She turns over in the middle of the night, watches Raven’s eyes flicker behind her eyelids as she dreams, and listens to the steady, even breaths Bellamy takes. Then she stretches her arms out, slides off the bed, and pads downstairs.

Wells isn’t there. She hadn’t expected him to be, but there’s a funny little feeling in her gut that she thinks might be guilt anyway. Wells has been her friend as long as Raven has, perhaps even longer; they’ve hunted together, fought together, and had basically brought each other up when their parents had been too busy to take care of them. And now she’s sided with a werewolf, an enemy in Wells’ eyes, over him. She understands how that can feel a little like betrayal; she doesn’t understand how he can’t just realize that working together means they can’t suspect each other of every little thing.

She flicks on the kitchen light instead, and it flickers a little before gamely turning on. She glances up at the single bare light bulb in the light fixture, surprised; she’ll have to replace it, along with the other three that have already burned out, soon. She never used to have to care about these things.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t used to have to care about a great many things. Like, for instance, doing dishes.

Clarke regards the mess in the sink with something like despair, before resolutely turning her back and grabbing a mostly clean mug from the cupboard. She fills it with water from the tap, and sips at it for a moment, before setting it back down on the countertop.

Then she rolls up the sleeves of her pajama top, turns the sink on to a little steady stream, and sticks her hands into the dirty washing-up.

The rush of the water is white noise, blocking out the thoughts in her head, and she tries to keep it down as she clanks around with the soap and the scrubbing sponge and attempts to maneuver around the soapy dishwater. It takes up so much of her concentration that she doesn’t even notice that someone’s behind her until he coughs, loudly and obnoxiously.

She startles, and almost drops a large lasagna dish onto the floor, yelping a little when soapy suds splash out over her bare legs anyway. She glares up at Bellamy as he moves to lean against the counter beside her, looking too amused and too awake for this time of night. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know, princess. Why are you doing the dishes at five in the morning? Did you even sleep?”

She turns back to the sink, absently pushing her hair behind her ears, cursing when she realizes she’s probably spread soap all over her head. “Someone has to do it,” she says sullenly.

“Yes, but not at five in the morning. Again, did you even sleep?”

She sighs, turns off the water. “I’m not very good at sleeping when we’re about to go to war. Funny how those things work.”

“Isn’t this what you were looking for?”

“I was expecting to kill a single werewolf. Not take on an entire pack.”

He falls quiet for a moment. His fingers tap along the edge of her countertop; hers twitch in the sink. “You’re not alone, at least,” he says eventually.

“No. I’m not,” she agrees. There’s that much, at least. Raven still can’t walk and Wells is being an idiot about everything, but at least Bellamy and his pack are here – and that’s something she never thought she’d find comfort in. It’s only been a day, really, but even now, his presence beside her is calming.

“Come on,” he says suddenly, and turns around, nudging her over so he’s standing before the sink with her. “You wash, I’ll dry.”

She blinks up at him, confused. “What? Weren’t you the one complaining about me doing dishes at five in the morning?”

“Someone has to do it,” he smirks back at her, and she snorts a little but turns the water back on anyway.

They work together in silence for a while, but the sound of the rushing water is no longer so great at blanking out her mind now that he’s standing beside her, which is no excuse, but is also the reason she blurts, “Sydney killed your mother?” five minutes later, and then immediately wants to stab herself.

“I’m sorry,” she adds hastily, wondering if the fact that his hands have suddenly stilled on the plate that he’s been drying means that he’s resisting the urge to smash it over her head. “You don’t – I don’t know what came over me. You don’t have to answer that.”

“No, princess,” he tells her, his voice heavy, and his hands start moving again, admittedly with what looks like a very great effort. She chances a sideways glance over at him, her hands working double time, and sees something unidentifiable flit over his expression before it settles back into a mask of calm. “It’s only fair. You’ve told me yours, now I tell you mine.”

“You don’t –”

“Our family line is one of the oldest, at least for werewolves,” Bellamy tells her calmly, his hands stands as steady as his voice, but he’s still not looking at her. “No one really knows how the first of us came about, considering how the change lies in the blood, but the point is, we’re old. And for werewolves, that means we’re powerful. Really powerful.”

Clarke raises her eyebrows and tries for levity to lighten the atmosphere. “So, what, you’re basically royalty?”

“You’re talking to the king of the werewolf clans, at least on this side of the hemisphere.”

“Wow. Should you really be doing the dishes, then?”

“Anything for my princess,” he says straight-faced, and then flicks dirty soap water from the sink into her face.

She splutters a bit and uses her arm to push the water out of her eyes, glaring at him. He laughs in her face. It’s almost relaxing, how easy they are around each other now.

“So, anyway, after my father died the alpha command basically passed through to me, because I’m his firstborn natural son. But my mother – well, you can think of her as a sort of regent, because I wasn’t yet sixteen, so the wolf in me hadn’t come out yet. So she was the legitimate alpha for a few years there, and then Sydney came. She was seeking shelter, from a few of the packs she’d angered up north, and we didn’t think any of it when we took her in. But then she killed my mother, so the title of alpha automatically passed on to her, and broke away with half of the wolves in our pack that saw a better future with her. That was – that was the year I skipped school for two years. I just couldn’t deal with it.”

“I don’t blame you,” Clarke mutters, resists the inexplicable urge to give the boy a hug, and hands him a plate to dry instead. He takes it from her obligingly, and actually smiles now.

“Yeah, well. After my sixteen birthday I became a wolf, and an alpha from my father. And I’m going to rip Sydney apart for what she did to my mother, so there’s that.”

“Wolf etiquette allows for ripping apart of other wolves?” she asks, only half-kidding.

He rolls his eyes. “Wolf etiquette allows for blood-for-blood revenge,” he explains grimly. “I’m getting it, even if it kills me.”

That reminds her far too much of herself for her taste, so she only flicks the tap off and dries her hand on a tea towel by the sink. “That’s the last of it,” she announces, and watches him stash the last of the wash and dried plates into cupboards.

He shuts the door of the cabinet, and straightens to regard her. “That’s the last of it,” he says, but his eyes are mainly fixed on her lips now, and she realizes in some detached way that he’d been considering this the same way that she’d been considering it for the past half hour, while they’d stood together and did dishes, off all things, and –

And then they’re kissing, and he crashes first into her and then the both of them into the edge of the wet sink, and she can feel the dampness seeping into her shirt but she doesn’t care because he’s still too far away.

“This is wrong,” he mumbles into her mouth, as she curls her fingers tight into his hair and jerks his head closer. “You’re a hunter, you kill werewolves –”

“We should probably stop right now,” she pants back into his mouth, and he releases a guttural groan that has her thighs tightening around his legs before hitching her up to sit on the countertop so he can have better access to the skin of her neck.

“Right now,” he agrees, but he’s forcing her legs to curve around his hips and all she can taste is him.

They keep kissing anyway, and honestly, Clarke’s very surprised she had the self-control to wait so long.

* * *

 

Raven eyes them both suspiciously the next morning, when she wheels in just a shade over this side of “dressed and presentable”, and parks herself at the kitchen table beside them. “You guys did the thing,” she accuses bluntly, “didn’t you?”

Bellamy and Clarke glance at each other. Bellamy gestures to the stack of pancakes in the center of the table. “I made pancakes,” he volunteers. “That’s a thing.”

Raven snorts derisively. “ _Pancakes_ ,” she scoffs. “Is that what they’re calling it, nowadays?”

So, okay, fine, Raven knew. It had been a long shot, anyway, because Raven has that uncanny ability to, like, peer into the depths of the soul or read minds or whatever.

“See if he makes pancakes for you anymore,” she shoots back mildly instead, but plates a stack up for Raven anyway.

“I didn’t think werewolves could be domestic and shit,” Raven says, as Clarke and Bellamy dig into their breakfasts, as well. “I thought they were all rawr and territorial and things.”

“Rawr?” Clarke asks, amused.

“I take offence,” Bellamy says indignantly. “Werewolves can be domestic.”

“Yeah, I see that now. So what’s on the agenda for today?”

“We’re going to war, didn’t anyone tell you?”

Clarke rolls her eyes at Bellamy, opening her mouth to retort when a soft, almost sullen knock comes at the door. Bellamy immediately perks up, and Clarke looks back towards him. “Is that Octavia, then?”

“I’m not sure. She hasn’t called –”

But then the lock clicks and the door swings open, and Wells is standing on the front step holding a large paper bag and what looks like a box of apology donuts. “Um,” he says awkwardly, observing them all crowded around in the table in pajamas and staring at him like he’s a zoo creature. “Good – good morning?”

Bellamy recovers himself first, and pastes on the brightest smile he can muster. “Excellent morning,” he nods enthusiastically.

Clarke hits Bellamy on the thigh surreptitiously beneath the table, and regards Wells with wary eyes. “Are you –”

“I, uh, brought donuts,” Wells offers, and holds up the box as though it wasn’t the first thing any of them had noticed when the door had opened. “And also coffee. I thought breakfast might be in order.”

“Bellamy made pancakes,” Raven says, and gestures at the spread in front of them. “We’ve got breakfast.”

Wells blows out his breath, hard. All of them wait. “And I also came to apologize,” he finally forces out, through gritted teeth. “I was out of line yesterday, and Clarke was right. If the alliance is going to work, there has to be trust. I might not trust you, Blake, but I do trust Clarke, and this will have to be good enough for you.”

There’s a single beat of silence, and then Bellamy reaches out and untucks a chair from the table, an open invitation. “It’s good enough for now,” he acknowledges, smiling insincerely, and Wells takes a seat. Cautiously, but he does sit, and a moment later Raven’s ripping open the donut box and stuffing her face.

“Octavia hasn’t called yet?” Clarke asks, trying to keep Bellamy’s attention off Wells.

Bellamy’s eyes snap to hers, and then to the open doorway as though he expects his sister to come rushing in any moment now. “No,” he murmurs, and the crease that forms between his eyebrows tell her that he thinks that something might be wrong.

“Do you think –”

And then the front door bangs open once more, and Raven startles so much she drops her donut on her lap. Bellamy half-rises from his chair and Clarke spins around to get a clearer look, but it’s not Octavia there, it’s Jasper and Monty, and their clothes are disheveled and sweaty and muddy like they’ve just been in a fistfight. A sense of rising horror as Clarke standing so suddenly that her chair is knocked backwards onto the floor, and she knows what they’re going to say before they say it.

“Sydney has Octavia,” Jasper gasps, clutching the side of his doorway as his claws morph back into human hands. They’d probably changed to get here faster, which means there might still be time, there might still be –

“She’s keeping her hostage, in their pack house,” Monty continues, the yellow not even halfway faded from his eyes. “We’re – Sydney knows we’re coming, Bellamy.”

Wells stands, as well, and there’s a set to his shoulders that broadcasts calm and control. “Did any of them follow you here?” he asks sharply.

Jasper and Monty’s eyes widen simultaneously.

“I’m going to need an answer,” Clarke says testily, hearing her voice rise, and tries to temper it down a little.

“I think –” Jasper hesitates, then bows his head. “Yes. Probably. Which means –”

“Octavia was bait,” Bellamy says tightly, “and you’ve been had. Yes, Jasper, that’s exactly what it means.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Monty defends. “There were –”

“There’s a time and place for those discussions, and it’s not right now,” Raven cuts off icily. She meets Clarke’s gaze, and then Bellamy’s. “We’re going to need to act, right now. We’re running out of time.”

“We’re already out of time,” Bellamy curses, the yellow flickering behind his eyes as he clenches and unclenches his hands repeatedly. He whirls around to Clarke. “I need – I need to go get Octavia. I can’t function unless she’s safe, they know that, everyone knows that, this was a fucking bad idea, but –”

“If that’s what you need to do, then you need to go do it and stop explaining yourself to anyone,” Clarke says firmly. “Your first priority is her, we get it.”

“I can’t,” Bellamy says helplessly, throwing his arms up. “You heard what Jasper and Monty said, they were followed, Sydney is coming for all of you here. I need to – I need to protect you here, you can’t –”

Clarke draws herself up. “You can’t tell me what I can or can’t do, Bellamy Blake,” she shoots back. “I’m a hunter. My pack is here. But yours isn’t, and you can’t be in two places at once, so you need to go save Octavia. This is what we were trained to do since we were old enough to walk, Bellamy, we’re not entirely useless.”

“Hear, hear,” Raven mutters dryly.

Bellamy ignores the interjection. “You can’t defend yourself against an entire pack, princess, be reasonable.”

“I’m not,” she says smoothly. “We just have to hold them off until you get back, right?”

Bellamy meets her gaze. There’s a pause, but then he nods. “You don’t need protecting,” he says, as though to reassure himself.

“No, we don’t,” Clarke agrees, and points out the open door. “Go, Bellamy.”

“Monty, go warn the rest of the pack, get half of them to raid Sydney’s house with me, and get the other half here, right now,” Bellamy snaps. He looks back at Clarke once more. “Princess –”

“Go, Bellamy,” she half-yells, exasperated, pushing him towards the door.

“I can’t lose you either, princess,” he tells her, and then his lips are on hers and she can’t think, can’t breathe, trying to sear this feeling into her mind forever, clutching at his shoulders to bring him closer.

And he runs, leaps out the door, and he’s human in the air but a single fluid second later has his paws hitting the dirt, throwing up clods in his wake as he sprints for his sister.

Monty turns tail and dives after his alpha; they watch them disappear into the line of the forest together, two wolves running in tandem.

“You and Bellamy?” Raven asks, a little dazed, like she’s in shock at the scene even after her accusations this morning, like she hadn’t thought she was actually right.

“There’s not time for this right now,” Clarke says, tense. “We need to start moving.”

Jasper looks back at them, still caught in the middle of the change, wide-eyed and scared. “What do we do now, then?”

“We’re going to give them the best fight we’ve got,” Clarke says grimly, and heads upstairs for the weapons.

* * *

“You need to go downstairs, Raven.”

“Fuck, no. I’m not barricading myself in the basement while the big bad men go fight for me like I’m some Southern damsel in distress in a shitty Civil War movie,” Raven says obstinately, and then crosses her arms over her chest as though to prove her point.

Clarke sighs exasperatedly, because there is literally no time for this and Jasper is hovering and they could be attacked at any second, do people not realize this, they have no backup, and Wells is still upstairs somewhere taking stock of the ammunition and they can’t even bother putting silver around the house because there’s no time, and –

“Raven,” she says, trying not to raise her voice or scream or do any of the other millions of things she’s very tempted to do right now. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, but you can’t walk, so unless you can _fly_ , I’m not entirely sure how you’re going to fight werewolves with us.”

Raven glares right back at her. It’s what had made her one of the best hunters in their generation; the fire for fight in her eyes, the way she refused to back down. _Get up until you can’t anymore_ , that had been her motto, and then one day she couldn’t anymore. “Clarke,” she parrots. “I can shoot a fucking gun. I can kill werewolves. Let me have a gun and a good vantage point, and you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Raven –”

“There’s no time, and you have no hunters,” Raven rebukes. “Wells is good, but he’s just a single person. Jasper is a werewolf, and he might be able to fight, but you know silver bullets are far more effective than claws. You _need_ me, Clarke, don’t you dare –”

There’s bang somewhere, out in the hall. Dust showers on top of them from the ceiling, and the both of them whir around as Wells comes flying down the stairs, tossing ammunition and a gun at Clarke as he goes, hoisting his one up onto his shoulder. “Incoming,” he says grimly, and the strain in his voice tells her how hard he’s working to keep his voice even and controlled. The calm that his father brings into the fight so naturally does not come easy to him, but to his credit, he’s trying. “Jasper, now would be a very good time to change.”

“Are they here?” Clarke asks, trying not to panic.

“I was upstairs, I saw incoming, not too many so there are probably more behind –”

“Clarke, give me the fucking gun –”

“Is there a battle plan, or do you want me to just go for it?” Jasper asks nervously.

“We only have to hold off until Bellamy gets back,” Clarke says, and then says it again in her head, a reassurance, like a prayer that would keep her safe. She’s only taken on one werewolf at a time before, and facing down so many, even with her own pack beside her, is making her blood pressure rise to mildly alarming levels.

_Just until Bellamy gets back_ , she tells herself, and something crashes into the side of the house again.

“The door’s not even locked, why won’t they use the –”

“They’re wolves, Clarke, that’s just how they work –”

“Clarke, _give me the fucking gun_ or so help me God –”

Then the wall caves in, they’re all on the floor and diving for cover, and Clarke stops thinking and tosses the gun in her hands at Raven, who catches it with a smirk and begins to take aim. Jasper’s not human anymore, and she glimpses an ashy-grey wolf rolling on the floor and snarling as he grapples violently with another, bigger wolf in the rubble of the crumbling house.

“Wells,” Clarke calls, her voice a little too high-pitched.

There’s a shot, echoing smooth and sharp through the hollowed atmosphere; and then Jasper leaps away, the other, darker wolf a still, motionless heap on the floor, silver glinting off the middle of its forehead.

“Got it,” Wells says with a sort of deep satisfaction, and tosses Clarke his gun. “Take that, I’ve got another –”

“Incoming,” Raven says, her voice quiet and even now that there’s a weapon in her hand. Clarke looks back towards the hole in the wall, moving her gun up to sight along the barrel, as a veritable pack of wolves burst in.

Jasper’s on them first, and Wells and Raven take them down rapid-fire with their guns as Jasper shoves and bites and howls at them. Clarke sees the blood staining the floor beneath them, can’t see if it’s Jasper’s or the other wolves’, doesn’t have time to check in between firing. But even as they go down more swarm in to take their place, and Jasper is flung to the side against a wall, where he slides down to a sorry heap on the floor, whining pitifully. This is a lost cause; this is a battle they can’t win.

“Clarke, fuck, get away –” Raven curses from the second floor, and somehow she’s already up there, more nimble in her wheelchair than she is on her two feet. Clarke has a second to frown at her and then turn around before she’s slammed into the floor so painfully her breath comes whooshing out of her, her grip on her gun loosening.

She hears Wells shoot for her, but everything else but the wolf on top of her seems to come through a screen of glass, from a distant time and place. The only thing immediate and real for her are the claws digging bloody red imprints in her shoulders, her sides, scraping at her and snarling, leaning down to bite her head off –

And then she slides sideways, between the animal’s front and back leg, and she feels the claws tear a massive gash in her side even as she twists, and stabs the entire front end of her gun deep into the werewolf’s gut.

The wolf lets out a keening cry, a beg for help, but then Wells fires again, and the bullet catches the werewolf dead center this time.

“Clarke, you’re hurt –”

Clarke winces, pressing a hand against the warm, gushing blood in her side. She knows she needs to stop, bind it up, apply pressure and stop the bleeding, but Raven still can’t run and the house is filled with werewolves trying to tear their heads off, so she really has other priorities right now.

“I’m fine,” Clarke grits out, and Wells spares her a worried glance seconds before he’s jumped by another wolf.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Raven chants loudly from above them, fires, and the wolf on Wells goes limp.

There is no time for first-aids and thank-you-for-saving-my-ass’s, so all Clarke does is keep her hand firmly pressed against her side, where she can feel she’s the most severely injured from her impromptu wrestling session with the wolf, and keep firing.

She and Wells gravitate towards each other in the center of the destroyed living room, because even though she and Raven have always worked better together, the first partner she’s ever had in the hunt was Wells, and it shows, even now. They stand back-to-back and defend each other and kill for each other, even as they dodge and dive and slide to avoid having their faces ripped off. It’s a little trickier doing things one-handed, because Clarke has a feeling if she lets go of her side now her intestines might just fall out of her gut, but Wells covers her blind side remarkable well.

“We can’t hold off much longer,” Wells grunts, even as he ducks down low to avoid a wolf’s paw catching where his neck would’ve been a second ago, and then twists around, jabs the wolf in the kidney with an elbow, and fires a slug into the back of its head.

“I know,” Clarke mutters, already feeling lightheaded from the blood loss. She has a feeling that it’s only the adrenaline in her body keeping her upright anymore. She fires, fires, fires, dances out of the way, tries to punch one in the face, fires some more. It’s like a dance. A beautiful, carefully choreographed dance made especially to kill. “Just until – just until Bellamy gets back, that’s all we’ll need.”

“You need to go sit down and bind up that wound, Clarke,” Wells pants back at her, firing at one going for Raven on the stairs, and then having to jerk out of the way at the last moment for the attack he’d been too distracted to see coming and properly avoid.

Clarke spins and takes the wolf out for him; and then she lashes out backwards, at the presence she can feel is there, smacking the wolf’s head with the flat of her gun and glimpsing Jasper go for the newcomers at the literal hole in her wall before firing a bullet into its skull. “I’m fine, I’m –”

“You’re not okay, Clarke, you can’t fight like this, you’re doing us more harm than good at this point. There’s too many –”

“When did Bellamy say he’s coming?” Raven hollers at them from the landing, which thankfully hasn’t collapsed yet, although frankly with the number of wolves Jasper’s been hurling at the walls Clarke isn’t sure it’s going to hold much longer. “Because – oh, fuck you, get the fuck away – I don’t think we – _think again, dog_ – can hold them off – _nope, nope, and nope_ – much longer.”

“Just until he gets back,” Clarke gasps, even with the black starting to swim in her vision. Wells is too busy emptying his barrel into the wolves but has time to spare a worried glance in her direction anyway. “Wells, behind you – _just until he gets back_ –”

A wolf leaps on her back and tackles her to the ground. She can’t sit up, her gun pressed between the floor and her chest uselessly, and he’s clawing her back to ribbons and she can feel his hot breath on the back of her neck. She hears Wells yell from what sounds like a great distance to her ringing ears, but then he’s wrestled to the ground by another wolf, and Clarke closes her eyes. Then she musters up the rest of her remaining strength, ignores the burning pain in her side, and throws herself over, onto her back. The wolf over her rears back, surprised at the sudden resistance, but is snarling back at her in the next moment.

She fumbles for her gun automatically, drawing it up to her shoulder, but it’s too late, she’s too late, the wolf is already leaping at her. She braces herself, wondering if she can get in a proper punch in before she’s mauled to death, but then a solid black shape comes flying out of nowhere and smacks into the wolf, changing its trajectory.

The wolves howl at each other and tussle on the ground ferociously, all claws and teeth and unrelenting determination in their matching yellow eyes. Clarke’s frozen for a moment, watching them, thinking _Bellamy_ , but then blood splashes over their fur and one of them howls, sending her spiraling back into reality. She brings up the gun and fires; one of the wolves drop to the ground, and the other, black one, stares up at her with something like pride before diving back into the fray with Jasper and – and about twenty or thirty other friendly wolves, his pack, that are suddenly very much _here_.

“Oh, thank fuck,” she hears Raven expel from the second floor, before another volley of shots sound out.

Clarke grins; her healing has kicked into action, and her side is probably still hanging wide open, but at least it’s starting to attempt to stitch itself back together now that the bleeding has slowed enough for the process to begin. She shoulders her gun, takes aim, and fires.

* * *

 

With Bellamy’s pack, things are over – not without more bloodshed, and a lot of other close calls, but Clarke doesn’t even want to imagine what might have happened if they hadn’t showed exactly when they had, or even a second later. When things have died down somewhat, Clarke sits down on the ravaged couch – it’s only got three legs left, and stands very tilted and wobbly, but it’s a couch, whatever – to check her wounds and Bellamy’s standing pressed up against another wolf sprawled over the floor, snarling so hard he’s spitting in its face.

“Is that –”

“Sydney,” Wells answers quietly, going to stand beside her. Everything else is motionless and dead; the entire battle had taken less than an hour, although Clarke thinks she’s probably lost years off her life from it. “That’s Sydney.”

Raven wheels over cautiously to join them. Slowly, ever so slowly, Bellamy morphs back into himself, dark curls and freckles and long muscled limbs. He doesn’t let up off Sydney, though, even though she’s clearly unconscious and already in the process of morphing back into herself, because wolves always prefer to heal as humans. Something about the efficiency of the healing process; Clarke has never really understood it, but she’s grateful for it now, because it means she can see Sydney’s face with Bellamy seconds away from slitting her throat.

And then Bellamy stands, and Sydney remains sprawled across the floor. “That’s it,” he says grimly, and glances back at them. Ostensibly he’s looking at everyone, but he locks eyes with Clarke and doesn’t look away. Clarke wonders if he’s doing the same thing he is, taking the sight of him in, marveling at the fact that this over, and they are – well, she’s not sure what they are, but it’s a thing at least, definitely a thing – and they’re both alive. “That’s the – the war’s over. We’ve won.”

“My mother,” Clarke says, and swallows thickly. The words almost don’t want to come, but she forces them out anyway. “My mother, where –

“She was locked up with Octavia,” Bellamy tells her quickly. “We got her out, she’s back at my pack house right now. She wanted to join the battle, but she’s too unstable, and she doesn’t know how to properly be a werewolf yet, but she’s with Octavia. Clarke, it’s going to be fine. It’s over.”

Relief threatens to pull Clarke under; all the stress and anxiety of the previous days disappear all at once, leaving her with a heady lightheadedness, and she clutches automatically at the side of the crumbling wall to keep herself upright, sucking in deep breaths of air and feeling like she can breathe, really breathe, for the first time in too long.

“Is this the part where we celebrate?” Jasper asks hopefully, looking tired and battered and like he’s been scuffling with other teenage boys a lot, but not like he’s been ripped into by werewolf after werewolf in the battle just minutes before. Werewolf healing is nothing to laugh at; Clarke winces as her side pulls at her as if in reproach.

Bellamy looks back down at Sydney. “No,” he says, his voice strangely hollow. “This is the part where we count the bodies.”

* * *

 

They count the bodies. They gather them up, give them proper burials, because this is what werewolves do for each other, even after fighting on opposite sides of an almost-war. Above all else, they still remain brothers and sisters.

“We take care of our own,” Monty explains to them quietly, as he digs in a shovel and starts in on yet another grave.

Wells and Clarke pitch in to help, while Raven goes back into what remains of the house and calls for takeout; Octavia turns up after a little while, grimy and dirty and in yesterday’s clothes, bags dragging beneath her eyes, and neither she and her brother say a word but they share a look that reads an entire book anyway. Clarke’s mother isn’t far behind, and her clothes are new and not hers, her hair is scraped back into a ponytail and she looks like she’s aged at least a decade since she’d seen her last, and she lets out something between a sob and a cry of relief when she sees her coming.

“I was so worried,” Abby whispers into her hair, as they crash together in a hug that threatens to knock the air out of Clarke’s lungs. “Oh, baby, I was so worried.”

Clarke gasps out a little laughter, although she’s mostly just crying into her mother’s shoulder at this point. Her mother’s warmth feels like something foreign, after so long, and she doesn’t ever want to let go. “You were worried for me? You were the one who got kidnapped.”

“It’ll never happen again,” Abby promises, and when they pull away, Clarke can see the new lines beneath her mother’s eyes, but there’s something overwhelming relieved in the exhaustion that lines her face anyway. “And, Clarke – I’m fine. I’m dealing with it.”

There are going to be bad days, Clarke reads in the smile her mother gives her. There are going to be bad days because there’s something very fundamentally different in her now, but there are going to be good days too, and as time goes on there will be more of the good than the bad, and she’s dealing with it.

So she nods at her mother, and bites her lip so she’ll stop crying. “Okay,” she smiles, watery and weak, but at least she’s smiling. “You should – you should go upstairs and get some rest now, Mom. We’ve got it here.”

Abby looks thoughtfully out at their motley group, Bellamy and his wolves, Clarke and her hunters. “Yes, actually, I think I will,” she agrees, and returns the smile, exhausted but still standing. “You’ve – you’ve done good here, Clarke. The Blake pack, they’re good people, and better wolves. They’ve taken good care of me, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you earlier.”

“We’ve got it,” Clarke repeats again, and her mother drops her hands and walks off back into her house, a little unsteady on her two legs. But the house is still standing, as are all the people she loves, and it may be sort of crumbling around the edges but she thinks they can rebuild it anyway.

When they’re done, the sun is set, the bodies are in the ground, and Sydney has been chained up in the basement that has been liberally sprinkled with silver powder.

They have pizza for dinner together, Monty and Jasper and Octavia and Bellamy, Clarke and Wells and Raven. There’s mostly silence, because it might have been a victory, but it’s also the farthest thing from a celebration. Bellamy’s lost more than a few from his pack, and Clarke’s pretty sure he’s also sort of grieving for the other side. Once upon a time, she would’ve thought him a fearless, ruthless alpha; now, he’s just a teenage boy, learning how to live a life he hadn’t asked for.

A lot like herself, actually.

She tries not to think about it.

And then Jasper and Monty leave, with Wells, making meaningless small talk together; Raven goes upstairs, saying that she wants to go to sleep, although it’s barely eight at night. Octavia looks questioningly at Bellamy, but he only inclines his head, which is apparently a full sentence because Octavia nods and stands.

“I’ll be seeing you, Clarke,” Octavia says, and then hesitates. “That was – you’re an excellent hunter. Even if you do kill my kind.”

Clarke tries for a smile, and feels her face threaten to split apart at the seams. “Thanks, Octavia. You’re an excellent not-werewolf, too.”

Octavia nods and slips out the door, although that’s sort of redundant now with the gaping hole in the side of the house. A draft blows in through it, swirling up dust from the rubble.

“I don’t even know who I should call to fix that,” Clarke says, and wants to bury her face in her hands and not have to deal with the world for the rest of her life.

Bellamy inches over on the floor and gently turns her around so she can bury her face in his shoulder, instead. He smells like smoke, and dirt, and blood. His arms are warm and comforting around her, and she lets herself get pulled into his embrace. “It’s over now, princess,” he says heavily. “It’s going to be fine.”

“I thought I would feel better. You know, with my father’s killer locked up in the basement. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long, after all. But so many people are dead, and my mother’s still – my mother’s still a werewolf, and I know things are going to get better, I know that, but it’s just – sort of depressing.”

“It’ll only be depressing for a bit longer,” he soothes, and pulls away slightly to look her in the eyes. “Your mother’s alive, and your father’s killer is in your basement. Whatever else, Clarke, this is a happy ending.”

She stares back at him, exhausted. “What do we do about Sydney?”

He shrugs. “I sliced off one of her arms, that was for Octavia. And now she’s in your basement, at our mercy, her land and wolves for my taking, and my mother has been avenged. What about your father?”

“I don’t know,” she finds herself saying. “I wanted to kill her, for killing my father. But I don’t think it works like that. I don’t think I’ll feel any better when she’s dead than – than what I’m feeling right now. I don’t understand why, but I don’t think it’s going to make anything right.”

“Then we don’t kill her.”

“So what do we do?”

He half-smiles. “We bask in our continued existence. We eat the rest of this pizza. We go to sleep. And in the morning, we can ask my pack and yours what we want to do with Sydney, start rebuilding your parents’ house, and go from there.”

Clarke smiles back at him, something promising and hopeful, and finally lets herself relax in his arms. “Alright, Bellamy. That sounds like a plan.”

* * *

 “So, like, remember the thing yesterday?” Raven asks bright and early the next morning, wheeling outside to join Clarke for breakfast. They’re eating on the yard because it’s nice outside, but also mainly because the hole in the side of the house means there’s not much difference between eating outside and eating in the kitchen.

“What thing?” Clarke asks pleasantly. “Lots of things happened yesterday. For instance, my house getting destroyed by a werewolf pack, Octavia getting kidnapped, my stomach getting ripped open –”

“The most important thing, obviously.” Raven leans over, steals a bite of Clarke’s lukewarm cereal, and then inhales half her coffee. Clarke hasn’t got it in her to be properly angry, and settles for a mild look of reproach instead. “The Bellamy thing?”

Clarke shrugs. “It’s a thing.”

“But, like, is it a meet-the-parents thing, or a bar hook-up thing, or a –”

“Neither of us have got parents to meet,” Clarke points out reasonably.

Raven grabs the spoon Clarke’s not using to eat her cereal anyway, and smacks her on top of the head with the wrong end of it. “I was speaking figuratively. Obviously.”

“I don’t know,” Clarke replies honestly. She thinks of the way she and Bellamy had left things last night, on an obvious note of promise, and can’t help but smile. “It’s a thing.”

“You’re useless and disgustingly soppy and really need to read a dictionary sometime,” Raven declares. “So, where’s boy wonder today? Why are there no pancakes?”

“He’s upstairs. Asleep.” Clarke pauses. “Actually, I’ve been out here since five in the morning, so there’s actually a great possibility he’s already gone home to check on Octavia.”

“Still here,” Bellamy says sleepily, and leans against the doorway to stare at them on the lawn. “Why are you guys eating cereal on the lawn?”

“We’re communing with the earth,” Raven explains, deadpan. “Would you like to join our holy morning ritual with Mother Nature?”

Bellamy stops, blinks, and then shrugs and goes to sit beside Clarke. “Sydney’s still in the basement,” he says.

Clarke sighs. “That’s what you decided to open with? You can’t have asked if we wanted pancakes or bacon or both for breakfast, or offered to put the coffeemaker on again because Raven’s drunk all of mine, or –”

Bellamy half-smiles. “Good morning, what would you like for breakfast, do you need more coffee with that, and Sydney’s still in your basement.”

Raven looks at Clarke, drains the last of the coffee from her mug, and arches an eyebrow in question. Clarke sighs, and gets to her feet, brushing off the butt of her sweatpants. “It can wait, Bellamy. Like you said, this is a happy ending, so go make me some pancakes.”

So they hang out in the freezing kitchen while Bellamy makes up enough bacon and eggs and toast to feed a small colony and after a bit Wells and Bellamy’s people – Octavia, Jasper, Monty – stop by.

“I think we’ve probably made history, you know,” Raven muses aloud while they eat and Clarke pours coffee for everyone. “Hunters and werewolves – there’s never been an alliance between our kind.”

“Probably time to rectify that,” Monty says mildly, his calmness belying the rate at which he’s stuffing bacon into his mouth.

“Do werewolves always eat like they haven’t seen food in a year and are one hair’s twitch away from starving to death?” Clarke wonders. Monty’s fork stills and his ears go a little pink at the tips, embarrassed.

“Not always,” Octavia corrects, “just most of the time.”

“I think someone else’s going to be making history soon too,” Raven interrupts loudly, and gives Bellamy and Clarke a pointed stare each. Clarke refuses to blush, and stares her partner down resolutely. Octavia smirks and lowers her gaze back down to eat her breakfast.

“Wait,” Jasper says slowly, his forehead creasing. “Wait a second –”

“Shut up, Jasper,” Monty mutters, and then probably kicks the boy’s shin under the table for good measure as well, because a second later Jasper’s yelping and glaring at his friend.

“Did you guys have sex with me and your mom in the next room?” Raven asks, point-blank blank and frank and making no move to be anything but tactless. “Because, heads up, that’s creepy and I’d like a warning before next time so I have time to cut my ears off.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Raven,” Bellamy says loftily, but then gives Clarke a suggestive look that tells everyone at the table exactly what they’d been doing last night anyway.

“And that is – that is so my cue to leave,” Octavia announces, standing and backing away from the table. “I do not need to hear a single word about my brother’s sex life, thank you very much, do not scar my virgin ears, and – Jasper, Monty, I’m leaving. You coming?”

Jasper and Monty glance at each other and then shrug and nod in scary unison, going to stand and head out with Octavia.

“I’m going to go call a construction company for a consult,” Raven announces, wheeling out towards the living room. “And then I’m going to rent an apartment for all of us, because this giant hole in the wall is definitely not working for me.”

“Or you could just stay at the pack house with us for a little bit,” Bellamy suggests. “Clarke’s mother has to come anyway, if she wants to be a part of our pack, and she needs to learn how to be a werewolf. And –”

“And you and Clarke want to have hot, hot sex,” Raven finishes, but she’s looking thoughtfully at them. “You know what, that would – that would be easier. And cool. You okay with that, hunters in your house?”

Bellamy grins lopsidedly. “Like you said, we’ve made history. Might as well continue this winning streak, right?”

“Right,” Raven agrees slowly, and then nods. “Don’t regret this, Blake. I’m not the best roommate in the world.”

“The house is big. I’m sure we could find some little basement to stuff you into.”

“Screw you,” Raven says flippantly, with no heat whatsoever, and then wheels into the living room to turn on the television.

Clarke eyes Bellamy. “You’d really let us move into your pack house?” she asks softly.

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s – I know what the houses mean to werewolves. It’s – it’s for family, isn’t it, and we’re not really.”

“You are,” he objects, startling her. His eyes are suddenly very intense. “You’re family, all of you, now. You might not be werewolves, and you might be our mortal enemies or whatever, but we’ve fought together, drawn blood and lost blood together, and that makes us family. So living in the pack house, really, it’s your prerogative.”

Clarke smiles, and holds out her hand for him to take. “Family,” she repeats. “I like the sound of that.”

He smiles, and intertwines his fingers with his. Their house is destroyed, but it can be rebuilt; her mother is a werewolf, but she’s strong and surviving, everyone is still breathing, and Sydney is still in the basement. “Happy ending, princess.”

“Happy ending,” she echoes, and leans forward to seal that promise with a kiss.

 

**fin.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay werewolves.

**Author's Note:**

> second chapter is in the works! if AP exams don't kill me first.


End file.
